Sweatybeard the Pirate

Sweatybeard the pirate was counting his latest haul of treasure which consisted of rings, necklaces and earrings. There are 26 items altogether. He has 2 and a half times as many rings as necklaces and the number of pairs of earrings is 4 less than the number of rings.
How many earring does Sweatybeard have?

Comments

There seems to be a flaw in the statement of the
problem. When I solved it as posed, I got 8.5 earrings, 12.5 rings, and 5 necklaces,
which makes sense algebraically but not physically.
Given the answer, it seems that it should read "the number of *pairs*
of earrings is 4 less than the number of rings", so
that there are 12 earrings, 10 rings, and 2 necklaces.

When I started on this I assumed earrings came in pairs, then remembered we were talking about a pirate, who only wears one earing, then remembered we were not talking about his personal earing but those he had in his ownership. It might have made it clearer to state, but when my brain finaly got itself together (a rare event today!)there was no poblem.